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What is a Biostatistician?

Posted on: 29 Aug 18

Summary

What is a Biostatistician?

Biostatistics is often described as the development and application of statistical methods when applied to medical and public health topics.

Biostatisticians aim to answer specific questions in pharmaceuticals, clinical research or public health. For example: does this new drug work; what are the causes of this disease, or what are the survival rates for a person with this illness.

As part of their work, a biostatistician will have to decide if existing methods can be used in the analysis of their specific data, or if a new statistical method (or new software) is required to assist with the analysis. Where new methods are developed, these can often be used in future studies or analysis.

In clinical research, they play a vital role in the design of clinical studies, and ensure that the correct data is collected from the study that will in turn allow meaningful statistical analysis to take place.

Biostatisticians work closely with experts in other fields to help them define the data and methods required. Such as therapy specialists, biologists, or health care professionals.

So a biostatistician is someone who uses statistical methods and mathematics to design or interpret biological experiments; to collect, analyse, interpret and summarize the data; and subsequently publish or release the findings of that data analysis.

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